ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on developments in Human resource management (HRM) in the Australian Public Service. HRM is both a set of activities and an approach. It is the management of staffing activities such as recruitment, selection, placement, promotion and termination. It embraces planning, information systems, career guidance, job design, reward systems, training, diversity and safety. The dichotomy between the unitary and pluralist perspectives derives from degrees of acceptance of diversity of interests within an organisation. A unitary approach assumes that employers and employees share common interests and that commitment is achieved by inclusive strategies, such as effective communication, consultation and rewards as well as exclusive strategies, including the discouragement of collective action. Public services agencies in Australia until the mid-1980s were bureaucratic in structure and processes and often characterised by a functional demarcation of responsibilities within a highly centralised environment. Personnel managers became the custodians of data for record-keeping purposes with a compliance, rather than a strategic, focus.
